Bob Murphy, Juggernaut
So says Jason Clemens in this announcement that I’m a Senior Fellow at the Fraser Institute.
It’s All Or Nothing When It Comes to Gifts From God, or Else We Hate Him
The danger in my last post is that atheists will say, “OK fair enough, Steve Landsburg was a little off in his joke about Catholics. But c’mon, the 30,000-foot view is still fine: It’s absurd when religious people ‘praise God’ for miraculous cures. Why doesn’t He cure everybody, why pick and choose? And c’mon, what hubris to think that an omnipotent, omniscient Being is going to alter the course of the universe based on a few slogans uttered by a slug on a tiny speck of dust in the Milky Way.”
I did a decent job summarizing some standard atheist points in the above, right? OK notice:
==> Once again there is a contradiction. On the one hand, God is being criticized for not answering everyone’s prayers. Yet, on the other hand, God is being criticized for answering anyone’s prayers. Thus, the atheists seem to be OK with a God who would cure 0% of human misery, or 100%, but not an intermediate amount. Is this outcome because (a) it’s inconceivable an omniscient Being might have a good reason for picking a percentage in between those two extremes, or because (b) the atheists advancing these simultaneous objections don’t believe in a God at all, and so aren’t really thinking it through very hard to imagine what the existence of a God would imply? I vote for the latter.
==> Try using Steve’s technique when it comes to human benefactors. For example, suppose I say that my Uncle Fred is a really swell guy, because every year he gets thousands of letters from people explaining their need for financial assistance, and he sends total contributions of $500,000 to hundreds of people each year, helping them pay for medical treatment, start a new business, move their relatives here from abroad, etc. Then a critic says, “Let me get this straight. Your Uncle Fred still has some money left over, right? So he routinely denies people help, even though on the margin it wouldn’t really change his lifestyle to answer a few more of those letters. Further, if I understand the situation, he only sends money to people who officially suck up to him. And you expect me to agree that this guy is worthy of admiration? Huh?!”
I hope we can all agree that such a critic would be way out of line. Isn’t it interesting then that we afford less courtesy and benefit of the doubt to a stipulated Creator of the universe, than to my stipulated Uncle Fred?
Atheists Can Mock Religion With Half Their Brain Tied Behind Their Back
I debated whether making this post, but what the heck. First, a disclaimer: I know Steve Landsburg “was just kidding” with this recent post about John Paul II being canonized. I’m not bringing it up to pout; I’m not even Catholic (anymore). But I still think it epitomizes an ironic trend among very confident atheists. Here’s Steve:
So if I have this right, it is now the official position of the Catholic church that:
1. The late Pope John Paul II has the ongoing power to cure brain aneurysms.
2. As far as we know, he has chosen to employ this power exactly once. (He also once cured a case of Parkinson’s.)
3. While hundreds of thousands of others have suffered and/or died from brain aneurysms, John Paul has not been moved to intervene.
4. The one victim he troubled himself to save was selected not because she was particularly deserving or particularly valuable to society, but because she chose the right guy to pray to — sort of like having to suck up to the teacher to get a good grade.
5. All of this makes John Paul II particularly fit for veneration.
For God’s sake (you should pardon the expression), if you’re looking to make the case that John Paul II was capable of performing (or at least catalyzing) genuine miracles, isn’t the defeat of Soviet Communism good enough? That right there makes him a saint in my book — though if I ever come to believe that he can cure aneurysms and has been holding out on us, I might have to retract my endorsement.
Look, I get it: If you are committed to an atheistic “scientific” worldview, then the popular religions seem absurd, particularly among people who really believe stuff in the Bible rather than just hoping in some vague thing out there that’s “bigger than us.”
Yet look what Steve had to do, to make his joke work. The initial premise is totally wrong. Not only is that not the “official position” of the Catholic Church, but the link Steve gives doesn’t even have a sentence that could be misconstrued to make one think that. So why did Steve put that as plank #1 in his argument? Because he needed it, in order to mock Catholics. If he had accurately reported their view, the particular joke he wanted to make wouldn’t have worked.
(Steve could have said, “Religious folks believe that if they pray to God, sometimes He miraculously cures them of illnesses. Huh, what a jerk, why doesn’t He always do this?! And why would an omnipotent Being let the prayers of little puny humans affect His wise decisions? This is ridiculous.” That would have made sense. But then, it wouldn’t have had the news hook of the John Paul II story, which is why Steve had to invent all the steps in his argument above, out of whole cloth.)
Incidentally, this guy in the comments walks through and points out that Steve’s joke makes no sense at all, and I think Steve agrees with him.
So, what’s my point? It’s this: Isn’t it a little ironic that a lot of atheists in effect say this, “Hey, when we mock religious people, cut us some slack, OK? We can’t be expected to actually get inside their worldview and try to critique them fairly. It’s fine to set up a strawman to knock it down, when it comes to religion, because they’re so illogical anyway. Remember, we’re the paragons of reason and empiricism.”
This is why atheists can simultaneously criticize theism for
(A) believing in a sick God that would let little kids die, and
(B) believing in a sick God that forces us to stay in a painful existence on Earth instead of being with Him in heaven.
And there are plenty more examples where that came from.
Sumner Turns His Interest Rate Liability Into an Asset
I have long said that I would be much more confident debating Paul Krugman than Scott Sumner. I disagree with Krugman on economics, you see, but with Sumner our disagreement is almost metaphysical.
For example, Austrians like me think that the 1929 stock market crash was (partially) due to expansionary Fed policy during the 1920s, which caused an unsustainable boom. In rejecting that view, Scott tries to show that there was no sensible “inflationary boom” during the 1920s. He first said you didn’t see it in the figures for the monetary base, and then he said: “The broader monetary aggregates rose significantly [during the 1920s], but the government didn’t even keep data on M1 and M2 until fairly recently. No one in the 1920s thought the Fed should be targeting aggregates that didn’t even exist.” In the comments he elaborated:
I’ve shown there was no inflation as the term was defined at the time. I’ve shown that there was no alternative non-inflationary policy as understood by policymakers at the time, including those in the 1920s who claimed the Fed was too inflationary. It makes no sense to argue things were inflationary because M2 went up, if M2 didn’t exist. There are no policy implications. M2 was an idea invented much later.
That’s kind of an odd refutation of the Austrian view, if you think about it. I responded, “I wonder how Sumner explains the massive deaths during the bubonic plague? Did doctors even know what bacteria were back then?”
Anyway, we see a similar phenomenon with the large increase in medium- and long-term Treasury yields in apparent reaction to the Fed’s announcements that it will “taper” (and then went the other way when Fed officials tried to pooh-pooh the taper talk).
Tyler Cowen has admitted this surprised him, and is open to revising his views. (This is characteristic Cowen.) Paul Krugman says that the increase in interest rates doesn’t surprise him at all, that the distinction is between the ending of a pre-announced bond-buying program versus a surprise announcement of a curtailment of QE, and that anybody who thinks he made a mistake doesn’t understand what Krugman has been saying all these years. (This too is characteristic Krugman.)
But look how Sumner handles the situation. He is sort of a blend between Cowen and Krugman. On the one hand, he is as frank as Cowen about being surprised. But he wants to be like Krugman too, and somehow integrate this new development into his broader theoretical framework to show that Sumner has been right, from a certain point of view: “PS. The fact that Krugman, Cowen, Kling, myself and many others were surprised by the surge in rates over the past few weeks actually speaks well of our understanding of macro. It shows that we’ve been paying attention, that rates don’t usually behave this way.” [Bold added.]
More recently Scott used an even more impressive jiu jitsu move. Watch this:
He’s right that even a small rise in short term rates can do a lot of harm, but I’d add that another problem with the conservative argument is that they don’t seem to realize that interest rates are a lousy indicator of the stance of monetary policy. When I studied economics that was a point that conservatives emphasized.
Even small increases in interest rates in the US (1937), Japan (2000 and 2006), and Europe (2011) drove each economy right back into deflation and/or depression.
…
I’m still puzzled by the response of long term rates to the tapering talk. But if long rates always moved the same way in response to monetary news, then interest rates would no longer be a lousy indicator of monetary policy. [Bold added.]
Notice two things about this passage:
==> When trying to show that he’s been right about tightening being bad for the economy, Scott–I think without realizing it–shows once again that interest rates are a “good” indicator of the stance of monetary policy, the way the Austrians claim. His four examples of central bank tightening ==> a renewed slump and (price) deflation were associated with increases in interest rates, per Scott’s own authority. In case you’re getting lost, remember: Scott’s point is that everybody needs to stop thinking that the current low interest rates are a sign of loose money, that Milton Friedman taught us that very low interest rates are a sign of tight money.
==> Then, moving on to our current example of tightness –> higher interest rates, Scott says it proves interest rates are a “lousy indicator” because we can’t get any signal from the noise. In other words, Scott is arguing, “Hey, if my claim that tightening should lead to lower long-term interest rates were always true, then interest rates would be a great indicator; we would just take what the Austrians say, and put a negative sign in front of it, to be sure we were right. But now, once in a while the Austrians will be right, since it’s a noisy indicator.”
Potpourri
==> I’m getting ready for my trip to Mordor next week, so blogging is still sparse. I’m really looking forward to posting the YouTube videos of the presentations from our panelists at the IER Carbon Tax conference, especially for you professional free-market economists who read this blog. I think you’re going to be surprised by some of the facts about the peer-reviewed literature that Ross McKitrick in particular has to share.
==> C’mon, this exchange with Daniel Kuehn is just plain funny.
==> David R. Henderson, perhaps sensing that I have been lazy, takes up the crusade against Krugman.
==> Landsburg wants Krugman to show his work next time, when commenting on sweatshops. BTW, in this earlier post I pointed out Krugman’s hypocritical complaints against the pro-taperers. Krugman said (with no quotation or link so I can’t verify) that the “near-universal” assertion among the people who wanted the Fed to taper, was that a small rise in interest rates wouldn’t do any real damage. Krugman incredulously asked: “As I’ve argued, this is a novel economic principle; where else do we argue that demand curves (in this case the demand for investment) are vertical at low prices?”
I pointed out that Krugman had done the exact same move in his support for raising the minimum wage (saying it wouldn’t increase unemployment). And now we have another example, when Krugman writes:
Given this reality, can we demand that Bangladesh provide better conditions for its workers? If we do this for Bangladesh, and only for Bangladesh, it could backfire: the business could move to China or Cambodia. But if we demand higher standards for all countries — modestly higher standards, so that we’re not talking about driving the business back to advanced countries — we can achieve an improvement in workers’ lives (and fewer horrible workers’ deaths), without undermining the export industries these countries so desperately need.
So, can we act to improve the lot of workers in low-age, labor-intensive manufacturing? Yes, we can, as long as the goals are realistic and the measures appropriate in scale. And we should go ahead and do it.
So, for Krugman’s argument to work, the demand curve for apparel apparently is vertical at least for cheap apparel. (Landsburg spells this out here.) Yet another example of Krugman doing exactly the thing for which he ridiculed the pro-taperers (without giving an actual example so I can’t evaluate if they’re doing it too).
Potpourri
==> If you’re in the DC area, next Wednesday August July 17 the Institute for Energy Research (IER) is having a panel on “Carbon Taxes: The Rest of the Story.” We will be walking through the peer-reviewed economic literature to give some surprising facts about the economics of climate change. Here’s the event info.
==> This Balko article on militarized police has some amazing anecdotes. For example:
As if the shock of having his house invaded by a SWAT team wasn’t enough, Nuckols was in for another surprise. In a letter to the editor of the Chatham Star Review, he described the raid: “Men ran at me, dropped into shooting position, double-handed semi-automatic pistols pointed at me, and made me put my hands against my truck. I was held at gunpoint, searched, taunted, and led into the house. I had no idea what this was about. I was scared beyond description.”
He then looked up, and saw . . . former NBA star Shaquille O’Neal.
O’Neal, an aspiring lawman, had been made an “honorary deputy” with the department. Though he had no training as a SWAT officer, Shaq apparently had gone on several such raids with other police departments around the country. The thrill of bringing an untrained celebrity along apparently trumped the requirement that SWAT teams be staffed only with the most elite, most highly qualified and best-trained cops. According to Nuckols, O’Neal reached into Nuckols’s pickup, snatched up his (perfectly legal) rifle, and exclaimed, “We’ve got a gun!” O’Neal told Time that Nuckols’s description of the raid on his home was exaggerated. “It ain’t no story,” he said. “We did everything right, went to the judge, got a warrant. You know, they make it seem like we beat him up, and that never happened. We went in, talked to him, took some stuff, returned it—bada bam, bada bing.”
And how about this?
Perhaps the best insight into the mentality the police brought to the DNC protests could be found on the T-shirts the Denver police union had printed up for the event. The shirts showed a menacing cop holding a baton. The caption: DNC 2008: WE GET UP EARLY, TO BEAT THE CROWDS. Police were spotted wearing similar shirts at the 2012 NATO summit in Chicago. At the 1996 DNC convention in Chicago, cops were seen wearing shirts that read: WE KICKED YOUR FATHER’S ASS IN 1968 . . . WAIT ’TIL YOU SEE WHAT WE DO TO YOU!
==> I tried reasoning with Noah Smith in the comments of this post, to no avail. I wonder if he even believes what he blogs?
==> Speaking of which, again I praise Tyler Cowen for at least admitting that his view of the Fed and asset prices is in trouble, given recent events. I don’t expect Sumner et al. to fall on the sword, but it would be nice if they would pause in their victory laps to acknowledge that the economy is much more complicated than a blackboard model.
==> Dustin Hoffman gets into his roles.
==> This article tries to debunk the recent report on the female sex drive. This part was hilarious:
So men, without the constraint of a woman saying no, appear to be far more promiscuous than women. “Females,” Baumeister writes, “constitute the restraining force on sex. That is, they refuse many offers or chances for sexual activity. When sex happens, it is because the woman has changed her vote from no to yes.” In a classic 1989 study, for instance, attractive research assistants approached men and women of the opposite sex on a college campus and asked: “I’ve been noticing you around campus and I think you’re attractive. Would you like to go to bed with me tonight?” Three quarters of men said yes. Exactly zero women did.
I just feel bad for the 75% of the guys who had to hear, “Oh, this is just a psych experiment, never mind.”
“Will We Run Out of Energy?” free lecture
Here is last week’s first lecture from my Adventures in Energy Economics class. There is still time to sign up for the remaining 4 lectures.
Krugman on the Fed’s “Taper”
In his last blog post, Krugman is astounded that there are actually economists applauding the Fed’s recent announcement that it will exit its bond-buying sooner than previously thought–i.e. that it will “taper” QE. Speaking of the case that these pro-tapering economists make, Krugman writes:
One of the odd things about the people arguing that we must raise interest rates to head off bubbles — Raghuram Rajan, Martin Feldstein, the BIS, and so on — is the near-universal assertion among this group that just a little rate increase can’t do any real harm. (Just a thin little mint). After all, rates are so low!
As I’ve argued, this is a novel economic principle; where else do we argue that demand curves (in this case the demand for investment) are vertical at low prices? [Bold added.]
Actually, it’s not novel at all. It’s just like Krugman arguing that an increase in the minimum wage wouldn’t boost unemployment–which means that demand curves for labor are vertical at low wages. Your rhetorical question has been answered, Dr. Krugman!
Less sarcastically: Where is this “near-universal” assertion that an increase in interest rates won’t hurt the economy? In his recent pro-taper op ed, for example, Feldstein writes: “The higher interest rates that followed the Fed’s announced plans for tapering its bond-buying will further weaken GDP and employment.”
I also skimmed the BIS statement (which Krugman had linked in an earlier, incredulous, post) and saw no example of this “near-universal” assertion.
I’m not denying somebody said it, but I’d like to see it to evaluate it.
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